U.K. Owner Revamps Space to Create Luxurious Eye Care Practice

March 24, 2025

When Pretty Basra, PhD, BSc (Hons), responded to a local optometry job listing in Doncaster, England, she had no plans of owning a practice. She was pregnant with her first baby, looking for part-time work and was hoping the owner would postpone her start date until after she gave birth. But the interview went “amazingly,” she says.

The previous owner, eager to sell, saw potential in Dr. Basra as an up-and-coming eye care professional and encouraged her to consider buying the space. Initially hesitant due to a lack of business experience, Dr. Basra and her husband, Pete, carefully considered the offer—including how the patients of a male owner would feel about an Asian female owner taking over.

“We were living with our in-laws and had a newborn on the way, so our plates were full. But I kept saying to my husband, ‘if I ever did have my own practice, I could see it happening here,’” Dr. Basra says. “It was a glimmer of what my professional life could be. That was 10 years ago—it’s been an exciting rollercoaster ever since.”

AN UPDATED LOOK

A few years after purchasing the practice, Dr. Basra was ready for a redesign. She found an interior designer to work with, but the COVID-19 pandemic stalled her plans. “All I had was a vision board,” Dr. Basra says. “Then for a while, nothing happened.”

So she used that time to plan. She and her husband found design inspiration everywhere, from Pinterest to shop fronts to restaurant décor. Her goal was to create an environment that felt more like a luxury hotel or spa than a traditional optical shop. “I wanted it to feel right, smell right and have the right textures and all,” she says.

the dispensing area — The dispensing area features cozy chairs, large mirrors and a wooden divider for extra privacy.

Edwards and Walker Opticians now features cozy furniture, warm lighting and gold details. The first thing patients see when they walk in the front door is a floor-to-ceiling wood beam feature with a round cutout to hold the frames of the season. The flooring is light parquet tiles designed to look like wood, and the optical area features individual desks for personalized frame selection.

A neon sign reading “All Eyes on Me” adds a playful touch and perfect Instagram spot, and large circular mirrors help patients see their frames from more angles. With a large number of pediatric patients, Dr. Basra incorporated a kid’s corner with a television, pops of color and books by her favorite children’s authors, including Roald Dahl.

the children's section — The children’s section.

LUXURIOUS INSPIRATION

the chandelier and front desk — A close-up of the chandelier.

She took inspiration from the luxury brand Chanel for the waiting area. She furnished it with a comfy sofa, wood beams on the ceiling and easy-to-clean rugs. The chairs and tables are luxury dupes from Amazon, and built-in lighting beneath the front desk helps avoid migraine-inducing bright ceiling lights. The waiting room table holds a custom faux floral piece made by a local florist, complete with ribbon and a pearl oyster shell. A statement art piece from a local artist hangs front and center in the waiting area, and the massive front desk, complete with a large crystal chandelier, serves as a focal point. Dr. Basra wanted to add wainscoting and wood moulding to pay homage to the heritage of the practice.

The ground floor includes the front desk, prescreening area, exam lane and optical space with a smaller collection of frames. Testing equipment was relocated from a not-so-private space on the main floor to a room. The second floor is used only for dispensing, and is called the Eye Lounge.” It features an additional 200 luxury frame options on custom wooden boards.

the frame boards — Funky frame boards bring an abstract art feeling to the optical.

Dr. Basra didn’t want the redesign to cause the practice to be closed extensively. Instead, she worked on one section at a time with a design timeframe of just three weeks. She scheduled the waiting and optical redesigns for the slower winter season and closed for a few business days. Then she strategically rotated which areas were being redone so patients could continue to visit.

“One of the first things we did was change the outdoor signage,” she says. “Even if you can’t afford a full redesign, customers see the exterior first. You can always start there to rebrand your space.”

the outside of the practice — The outside of Edwards & Walker Opticians was the first area to be renovated.

EXPANDING SERVICES

The practice now employs a team of six, including a front-of-house staff member, a social media specialist and three dispensers—one of whom manages all on-site edging at a station behind the reception desk. Equipment includes a Keeler tonometer, a Nidek Intelligent Refractor RT-6100 phoropter, a REVO 60 optical coherence tomography (OCT) machine and a visual field machine. After 7 years in the business in 2022, Dr. Basra saw an opportunity to introduce medical aesthetics to the practice. She’s now the only optometrist in the U.K. to offer these services in-house.

Her hard work, it seems, has paid off. She’s been named a top five eye care professional in the U.K. three times, and her patient base has only grown. “I have patients whom I’ve seen for years, and others just walk by and say, ‘I just had to stop in,’” she says. “We’ve become a staple on our high street, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.”